#the new showrunner pulled it out her ass.

[johnisonlysleeping]

me when they do representation but pick the WRONG CHARACTER to be a lesbian:

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I hope bridgerton gets cancelled before i have to watch Eloise fall in love and have kids with a MAN.

[genericpuff]

Rachel did a live Q&A in the LO Discord server and gave some news about the Animated Series, it’s still happening! (Surprisingly) Any thoughts on that or things you’d like to see from it?

Right, like every other time she's said it's "still happening" with no evidence to actually support it. That's always been the issue and still is.

Sorry, that's not me being snarky at you, I'm more so frustrated and absolutely fucking done with all the empty promises and platitudes.

Best case scenario with what was said during the Q&A was that she said "it's still happening" (worst case was that she didn't address it at all).

Like, how is this:

"I can say that… we are currently doing work on it… and it is going well.. and that it looks really cool and that I wish everyone could see what we’ve done because it looks really really really cool, and it’s happening, but that’s all I can say at this point… I can say, making tv shows takes a really long time, it takes so long" (last night's Q&A)

Any different than this:

Any different than this:

“Um, it’s been really interesting. It’s been educational for me. So, what I—what has been done so far is beautiful. Like, if I could share it, I would. But I can’t. Because it’s very naughty.” - Girl Wonder SDCC (July 2023)

She's been saying this for the last two years since people started getting suspicious it wasn't happening in the first place, and despite all the reassurances that "it's still happening", it doesn't seem to have anything to show for itself. Cast list? Nope. Director? Nope. Writers? Nah. Just a showrunner whose bio still says "TBA" and who, despite having a whole ass 40 minute long interview with Girl Wonder, still didn't have anything to show for what's to come, just more empty promises that it's "still happening" (and a lot of banter about Stephanie's life, rather than her involvement with LO).

In fact, most of what Stephanie talks about in the podcast concerning LO is pitching it, not developing it. And this interview happened just a few months ago. Go listen to it yourself if you don't believe me.

So at this point, I see "it's still happening" as "don't panic" corporate speak for "we're still pitching it and trying to find a network for it so we can actually move onto development." Yes, animation takes a long time, even Hazbin Hotel took about three and a half years to finally release after Prime bought the rights to it in 2020. But LO, again, clearly hasn't even started the animation process yet. And while we're comparing it to Hazbin, note that HH actually had LOADS to show for itself along the way of being developed and did a much, MUCH better job at staying relevant and pulling in new people and hyping it up. Even people who never watched Hazbin before in its indie days on Youtube were hearing about it, it made an active effort to sell itself to new viewers and break out of its bubble on Youtube. Is LO doing that? No, not really. Most of the people who know about it are diehard fans who refuse to read anything that isn't shown directly to them on Webtoons, and diehard haters who are tired of the garbage that gets advertised on Webtoons. Ask anyone who doesn't use Webtoons, and best case, they'll know someone who reads LO, worst case, they won't even know what a webtoon is.

Shit, even the new upcoming Zelda movie has names attached to it, including Avi Arad, Wes Ball, and Derek Connolly. And my god, it's gonna SUCK DICK with that bad of a line-up (the guy who ruined the OG Spiderman trilogy and created Morbius, the guy who directed the Maze Runner films, and one of the leading storywriters behind Rise of Skywalker, fucking YIKES) but hey, at least it has more than one name attached to it.

But okay, if we're gonna play the comparison game, let's be fair and compare LO to some other works in its own lane. Let's Play announced last year that it would be getting an animated adaption, and it already has a studio backing it that is FAR more suited for it than JHC is to LO - OLM, the same studio whose animated for massive franchises like Pokemon, Yo-Kai, and Gudetama. JHC meanwhile has animated... motion capture kid shows like Word Party. Because that's the only kind of animation they actually specialize in when it comes to their in-house services. Sure, they also have Harriet the Spy, but that wasn't animated by them, that was animated by Titmouse Inc (heh sorry).

I'm the Grim Reaper recently had its own animated adaption announced, and who's in charge of it? Oh, only SAM FUCKING RAIMI-

And look, maybe the Let's Play and I'm the Grim Reaper adaptions won't happen either. I just think it's ironic that they both have more to show for themselves in terms of credible names attached to them than what LO has managed to scrape up after five years of promising that it's "still happening" (especially when one of those series is nowhere near as big as LO and the one that WAS as big as LO walked away from Webtoons entirely). For Webtoons' own "worldwide phenomenon", they sure have given LO the shit end of the stick by pairing it with a family-with-kids-under-10 production studio that doesn't specialize in animation and a showrunner who got her start with the Cosmopolitan (weird how LO has so many plugs with Cosmo, huh? Why is JHC producing the show again?)

At the end of the day, nothing's changed. It's still just the ole' "it's still happening" record on a loop, while the comic itself falls further out of favor with people. And it's likely gonna be going behind DailyPass soon, so just think about what that's gonna do to its relevancy after it gets sent away to the equivalent of the Webtoons graveyard.

As I've said countless times before every time this topic comes up, at best, if it is still happening, and I'm wrong about all of this, they are doing the worst job I've ever seen at hyping people up and keeping them informed. It is NOT a good thing that people have to keep asking Rachel if it's still happening.

As for worst case... you wanna know what other projects come to my mind that have fallen into the same state of development hell and decay as LO's TV show? YandereSim and Cryamore. What do you think the popular opinion is about those works and their creators now? Because if you don't know either of those names and are about to google them, let me give you a heads up warning - it's not positive.

If it happens, it happens. It will hopefully be before I get all the therapy I need to undo what LO has done to my brain so that I don't have to make repeat visits LOL But if it's after, hey, maybe the show will be good! Assuming Rachel doesn't, y'know, E.L. James the whole thing. Because frankly, the show will need to cut and rework a LOT of stuff to be any good IMO and I don't think that will be possible if Rachel gets directly involved. But I'm not even hoping for that scenario because there's literally NOTHING to give me that hope, "it's still happening" is nothing more than "don't panic" corporate speak to me at this point. It's cynical, but I just can't waste my energy caring about it anymore.

[mendes-bae]

A fair exchange — part four

series masterlist ; part three ; part five

Part four summary: Velarys and Aemond's daughter is born, everything should be happiness, right?

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x (F) Targaryen!reader

Warning: NSFW 🔞 incest, angst, kissing, smut, PiV sex, unprotected sex, CHARACTER DEATH, depression, trauma, grieving, bittersweet chapter ending.

Author's note: ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE! this is my first time writing a fic in English, so beforehand, i'm sorry 👀

All the rights belong to the showrunners of HOTD and George R.R Martin, author of Fire and blood & Song of ice and fire series‼️

Word count: 2390

At least eight moons had passed since Aemond and Velarys Targaryen were joined in marriage. They had discovered that they were very happy together, the prince adored his now very pregnant wife and she adored him even more.

Velarys was stroking her swollen belly as she read a book about healing ointments and medicines when she heard the door opening.

"I have excellent news!" Aemond said as he entered the chambers he shared with his wife.

"What's going on?" Velarys asked, settling down on the sofa carefully because every day that pass moving was more difficult: her stomach didn't stop growing.

"Vhagar gave birth to three beautiful eggs"

Velarys smiled, many of the dragon keepers said that the dragon was too old to have babies.

"It worked then... put our dragons in the same pit"

"Well… it was a bit of a rough match" the prince laughed, sitting down next to his wife.

"Why?" She looked at Aemond curiously.

"Vaghnar got a little bit excited and hurt my dragon" he smiled mischievously.

"Vaghnar has lived wild most of his life, you can't blame him. He has improved a lot temperamentally, and his relationships with other dragons are more civilized now"

Aemond showed the dragon eggs that he was holding in his hands: their shells were silver resembling Valyrian steel, dark blue almost black, and pristine white.

"The matter is that our daughter will have her own dragon egg," Aemond said, stroking Velarys's belly.

The princess smiled.

“How do you know that is a girl?”

"I just feel it"

"Well... in a couple of moons we'll find out."

Aemond smiled as he imagined a baby in his arms. He get closer to Velarys and kissed her slowly.

The princess caressed his ribs and in a blink her hands entered her husband's pants.

"Lady Dorella says that having sex during pregnancy helps ease pain and contractions" said Velarys moving her hand over Aemond's cock "I'm willing to try that method"

The dragon prince growled.

"And who am I to deny anything to my beloved wife?"

Aemond bit his lip and moved closer to the princess.

Velarys got up from the sofa and the prince thought that they would take the fun to the huge bed in the center of the room, but the white-hair woman surprised him: she raised the linen gown to her hips and exposed her sex while she was on her hands and knees.

"Do you want me that much, wife?" Aemond asked pulling his pants down.

"Always, my love" she replied in moans, wishing him inside her.

"So much that you want me to take you here and not in our bed... where we conceived our child and where we will conceive more?" he nestled his erection against her butt.

Velarys moaned and pressed against him, beginning to rub against his manhood, wanting to tease him further.

When she least expected it, his member entered inside her. For a while, he did nothing else than rub her back and moaning at the feeling of being inside her, but then he began to move quickly.

In the room, only their groans and moans could be heard, as well as the noise of their skins colliding.

"Faster, Aemond" the princess begged.

A desperate Aemond began to move wildly heeding her request, while her hands squeezed his ass, giving him pleasurable pain.

In a couple more thrusts, the prince made both of them came. Aemond cupped Velarys's large breasts and caressed them gently.

"I love you, Velarys" the prince confessed for the first time.

His sweaty forehead was on one of his wife's shoulders, his eyes were closed waiting for her answer.

"I love you too, Aemond" replied the princess crawling into his arms.

￮ ੭ 𓈒 ˙ 🐉🐉🐉 ˳ ⊹ ˚ 𝅄

Aemond came back from Old Town as fast as Vhagar's wings could fly. He was visiting his younger brother, Daeron, at the Hightower ancestral castle and Velarys had been unable to accompany him due to the advanced stage of her pregnancy.

When the raven arrived Old Town, Aemond left everything behind and didn't care who he might offend with his hasty departure.

Aemond ran up the Red Keep steps and even from the lower floors he could hear his wife's cries of pain.

In the hall, Alicent prayed for her daughter-in-law and the coming baby to the Seven, beside her Helaena rocked Jaehaera lovingly as the little girl slept.

"Aemond!" his mother said when she saw him appear.

The prince ignored her and tried to enter the room where his wife was.

"Aemond, the Mestres are taking care of her, you don't want to go in"

"That's up to me, Mother" he said, wriggling free of the queen's grasp. "my wife and our child are inside, I must be with them"

His mother and sister didn't say a thing since neither of their husbands had been at any of their children births.

Aemond opened the huge doors and immediately saw Velarys exhausted and flushed, her white hair was drenched with sweat, the sheets and her bed gown were bloody.

He ran to his wife's side and took her trembling hand.

"You came" said Velarys between sobs.

"I came as soon as I can, my brave wife" he replied kissing her hand.

Velarys cried out when a contraction showed.

"I see baby's head... white hair as the clouds in the sky" said the Mester.

"This hurts like hell" the princess complained.

"I know, my love" he kissed his wife's temple "you can do it"

"Once again, my princess, push!" ordered the old man.

The baby's cries filled the room and the royal couple closed their eyes in relief.

"Is a beautiful girl, your highness" said the Mester wrapping the baby with the blankets that Rose Westerling gave him.

The new parents smiled at the news.

"Bring her to me" said the mother extending her arms.

Rose walked up carefully to her lady with her daughter in arms and handed her over.

"She is so beautiful" said Velarys with tears in her eyes.

"Yes, she is" answered Aemond admiring his sweet daughter "Just like her mother"

Aemond lovingly kissed his wife's lips.

The room doors opened and the King and the Queen entered.

"Congratulations, blood of my blood!" Viserys said with a big smile on his face.

The new parents couldn't help but staring the little girl in her mother's arms.

"She is a beautiful girl, Velarys" Alicent praised looking at the baby "How will you call her?"

"Ellarys" replied the white-hair woman with her daughter's little finger curled around hers.

Aemond smiled at her lovely name.

￮ ੭ 𓈒 ˙ 🐉🐉🐉 ˳ ⊹ ˚ 𝅄

Ellarys was indeed a sweet girl: the light in her parents' eyes, they loved her too much.

And although the young Targaryens would face anything for the little girl, there are enemies that were invisible: Ellarys had the misfortune to fall ill with a terrible disease that affected the Westeros youngest ones, ravens said that children in Winterfell had passed by this disease, even in the south of the continent people were grieving their children.

Ellarys suffered from fever for days, red spots spread all over her body and cough didn't let her sleep at night. Velarys and Aemond felt the world fall at their feet each time her daughter breathed in pain.

Velarys spent the night by her side, holding her tiny hand, Aemond was on the sofa in front of her bed dozing because his sleep was winning him over. At some point in the late morning, the princess was also overcome by exhaustion and when she woke up she noticed that her little daughter's chest was not moving.

"Ellarys!" The Mestres entered the girl's room alarmed by the princess's screams and tried to do something to help her, but it was too late, the girl had left this world.

Velarys blamed herself for the death of her little daughter. If she hadn't fallen asleep, she might have called the Mestres and they could have saved her.

The young mother could not assimilate what was happening: the wrapped body of her little two-year-old daughter was on the pyre in the same meadow where her mother and brother were burned to ashes years ago.

Velarys could only think that she would no longer see her in the gardens or jumping through the Red Keep corridors, that she would no longer braid her hair or she would never sing her to sleep again. Her heart was squeezing with pain.

Vaghnar and Vhagar silently watched their riders, awaiting for instructions. Beside them was Silverfyre who moaned in pain as he didn't feel her little mistress.

Silverfyre followed Vaghnar as if he were his shadow and even though Velarys was not her rider, the creature obeyed the princess's orders.

Aemond held Velarys's hand tightly, trying to contain his tears because he must be the support of his sad wife.

With broken voice Aemond ordered Vhagar:

"Dracarys!"

Velarys screamed, got free of her husband's grasp and ran to the pyre.

Aemond wrapped his arms around her and both of them fell to their knees in front of her burning daughter, the young mother crying out for the child's loss.

The Targaryens mourned with Princess Velarys the death of the innocent little one and all of Realm's fallen kids.

￮ ੭ 𓈒 ˙ 🐉🐉🐉 ˳ ⊹ ˚ 𝅄

Velarys had not been the same since Ellarys had died, almost a moon ago.

She no longer laughed or sang, and most importantly, she no longer rode her dragon.

She cried until she had no more tears to cry. She hardly ate or drank and spent her days in bed, she didn't comb her hair or wear other clothes than her night gown. She didn't let anyone enter the room, except Aemond but she didn't even say a word to him.

She was a ghost, Aemond's heart ached because of his little girl lost but he felt that in a way he had also lost his wife.

Aemond entered the room and saw Rose Westerling (the only person besides him who could be with her) spilling water on her hair.

"Leave us" he ordered the maiden.

The princess's lady-in-waiting stopped what she was doing and she left the chambers.

Aemond knelt beside Velarys and admired her wife's profile: as usual, she was staring the wall and barely blinking.

The prince took her hand and placed a kiss on it. He dropped her hand and took the vanilla soap that was set aside to clean his wife's shoulders.

Aemond gazed at the princess's body with pain, her bones protruding from the little bit of food she ate and her skin extremely pale from lack of sun.

He was washing his hair when he heard Velarys say in a whisper:

"Do the Gods hate me?"

Aemond put down the bar of soap and studied her carefully.

"What have I done to face their anger?"

"You haven't done anything" Her husband replied brushing her hair "The Gods are unfair sometimes, it's not your fault"

"She was a good girl" she said referring to Ellarys. "she was a sweet and kind girl. She didn't deserve it"

"Of course not" Aemond caressed her cheek.

"I want to die" she said suddenly between sobs.

"Don't say that" the prince sat up over the tub, his shirt sleeves getting wet.

"I want this pain to end, I just want to be with my little girl" she closed her eyes.

Aemond cupped her cheeks.

"Velarys, I love you with all my heart" he confessed "if you die... if you leave me alone in this world, a part of me leaves with you"

The prince didn't mind being dressed, he made room behind Velarys and entered the tub to hug his wife tightly.

They held each other until the water cooled, Velarys stopped sobbing, and her bare skin turned cold.

He could hold her for hours, days, and whole moons if it meant she wasn't going to leave him.

￮ ੭ 𓈒 ˙ 🐉🐉🐉 ˳ ⊹ ˚ 𝅄

Velarys watched Aemond fight Sir Criston like every morning, the way he dealt grief. She watched for a long time without anyone noticing her. Aemond saw her and immediately dropped his sword. It was the first time that Velarys had left their chambers.

"Shall we take a dragon ride?" The princess asked shyly.

Aemond nodded softly and walked with their hands linked.

When the couple entered the dragons pit, they noticed the silence reign in the cave. Velarys was walking by inertia and got scared when a little beast no bigger than a cow ran up to her.

The princess snapped out of her shock and realized that the creature was Silverfyre, little Ellarys's dragon. She had never been able to ride it because she varely knew how to speak well, but the beast had been hatched between her blankets when she was born and when the girl got her first tooth, the shell of her egg broke. From the time it hatched until the last days of her child's life, the little silver-scaled beast had been by her side, the bond between them was stronger than any other rider and their dragon.

As Velarys reached the little Dragon, Silverfyre wrapped her tail around the princess's arm and with her head sought the warmth of the white-haired’s chest.

“Nyke ozmijegon yel” I miss her too.

Aemond heard Velarys said as he watched them from the cave entrance.

Aemond approached them and when he was about to climbed Vhagar’s back the princess said:

"For this time, will you ride with me?" her husband looked at Vaghnar "I want to be next to you"

Vhagar roared from across the pit, implying that she didn't mind, Aemond didn't need him to say it twice.

They flew for hours, Aemond tightly hugging Velarys's waist. He stroked her hair which was blowing loose in the wind and thanked whatever God was listening to have Velarys by his side.

"I love you" he said in her ear.

"I love you too" replied his wife.

Part five

Taglist

@mynameisbaby9 @princessmiaelicia @sustisama @daddysfavoritesexkitten

@deeeeexx @zverea @tempo-rary-fix

@stargaryenx @filmelunar @yor72

@tivedetek4869 @maviee @remuslupinwifee @fuckinglittlekitten @may-machin @kaitieskidmore1 @zillahvathek

@marvelita85 @25falsafielisa

@solacestyles @polireader

@mariaelizabeth21-blog1 @loomipee

[sorchathered]

Outer Range spoilers under the cut, you’ve been warned bbs

Ok, I just finished the season, didn’t have a chance to binge after getting back from Japan and hitting the ground running but I managed to avoid spoilers thankfully.

1. Episode one almost felt like a completely different show, I knew from the beginning that a new showrunner meant a direction change but it didn’t seem to have that odd obscure factor to it last season had. Rhett content is mostly what I am here for and thankfully while fleeting he made sure to stand out with his endearing panic over all the cats in the hotel and all the ridiculous faces he pulled. Billy being alive and getting some musical content was exactly what I hoped for, Noah Reid is a scene stealer and I adore him.

2. Helloooo young Royal, I honestly didn’t think I’d find you appealing but something about your arms nearly busting the sleeves of that pearl button up got me going. Perry is almost human in these scenes with his father, I have been a huge member of the fuck Perry Abbott fan club so if I’m giving him a compliment just know it’s shocking me too. Rhett finding out about Amy tore my heart up, he may be done with his family but he loves his niece with all of his heart. Maria once again gives me the ick, she consistently proves time and time again that she doesn’t know anything about Rhett but she enjoys the attention he gives her. I think she is just using him to get out of Wabang and it could really have been anyone who gave her the time of day to sweep her away from that town, Rhett just happened to be mooning over her enough that she finally took notice.

3. While I am still on the fence about this new showrunner and the direction, RHETT’S NAKED ASS 🥵

Lew still wins the battle of the top gun boys in the best ass around battle, I’m sorry but you could bounce quarters off that thing it is perfection.

Luke Tillerson is a weirdo fuck boy, dude you are a pos as a brother and now you think your purpose is to follow autumn around like a puppy. I’d say grow up but I think that you don’t have the ability.

4. Idk that we needed an entire episode about Joy, but I did enjoy this one. It gave us more insight into how the past can change the present through the hole and while it didn’t make much sense in the rules of time travel I did like seeing how it changed things in Royal’s life and joy’s little one finding the picture with her mom in it from the 1880’s.

5. That choking scene finally makes more sense in the context of Cecilia’s dream. Lily Taylor has been crushing it this season, her character development has been phenomenal. I feel like the interpretation of the dream was something I would need to watch a few times to really understand, but I felt so much for her in that moment. Amy and Autumn having a psychic connection during Autumn’s trip with the mineral was crazy, I’m glad she got her memories back but she just continues to puzzle me more and more.

6. This episode was WILD. So much packed into an hour. I agree with everyone else that this Rhett/Dr Nia subplot was fucking weird, I get it though get your bag baby. He didn’t get nearly enough time for us to understand why he wanted to do it or what drove him to do something that felt so out of character for him. Rip Billy, you were far too camp and fabulous for this world and you deserved so much more, Luke and Autumn’s creepy sexual tension strikes again and I haaaattteee it. Royal did the right thing for once sending Perry back, he needs to get his shit together and somehow young Royal seems to be the only level headed person right now (insanity!).

Joy has got some serious PTSD, I am so glad her wife is understanding but she needs to speak to someone, it’s going to boil over soon enough.

7. I meant to discuss everything with Rebecca but now is as good a time as any. When Autumn says that she only took Amy out of spite it really tied it all together. She never loved Perry, she probably never loved Amy, she seems extremely selfish and childish and I feel for Amy because she doesn’t have anyone right now. She thinks she can trust the people she knows from back home and that backfires horribly in her face. When Autumn shows Rebecca the vision and I realized the whole thing is about Amy being a sacrifice for the hole I felt a pit in my stomach. This poor child has been through hell, and now she doesn’t have any choice but to be thrust into becoming the person Autumn is engineering her to be. Perry saving Trevor came at such a weird cost, I audibly gasped when I realized what was about to happen. I can’t imagine how weird that must be, carrying your own corpse home to lay it to rest and realizing that you have a chance to change everything. But again the rules of time travel don’t seem to apply here, because I don’t think Wayne would have thrown himself in the hole if Trevor was still alive in his present, and it would have changed every single circumstance that brought them to this point.

Regardless the season was ok, plot was hard to follow (more than usual) and in some scenes it felt like I was watching a totally different show. I think I like that we can continue to write our fics about Rhett and that the show didn’t alter our perception of him as much, but I also think he should have had more time. His character development was almost non existent, like @delopsia and I were talking about the other day, they should have rustled up a few of us Rhett writers and we could have really crushed this season. I’ll continue to live in delulu fanfic land because as much as I was excited for this season it just wasn’t what I hoped for.

[esther-dot]

'Why are Aria stans so obsessed with her becoming QITN and write increasingly deranged metas about that happening?'

So, ok, as someone that watched this shit unfold in realtime back in 2019 let me jump in. Aria fans are now fixated on QITN being her endgame because it was Sansa's endgame. Her stans are like toddlers. You know when a toddler hates apples but then sees a fellow toddler at the playground eating apples so now they want an apple too? Yeah, this is literally what is happening. Trust me if Sansa never became QITN and instead become Lady of the Vale or something Aria stans would want that for her endgame too. I'm sorry but Aria was a literal book fan and show fan fave and there would be weekly viral tweets with tens of thousands of likes praising how BaDaSs she was for 8 years and her fans think that GRRM told D and D Aria became QITN in this triumphant moment and they were like '.....Nah, we're going to give that to Sansa who half the fanbase spent close to a decade hating on....thanks for the input tho George.' Like, really? Really?

This is how I know all those endgames came from Martin. Fan fave Jon gets exiled North and White Soccer Mom Feminist icon KhAlEesI goes dark, carpet bombs a city, and gets killed by another fan fave and people think this shit came from D and D? It killllls me how half the fanbase is still committed to this fiction that D and D just totally pulled those endings out of their ass. It makes no sense.

D and D knew all they had to do to stick the landing on GOT for it to be hailed as one of the best shows ever on television was to give Jon and/or Dani some triumphant coronation after defeating the Evil Queen Cersei and that shit would have been praised by every normie that watched GOT for a decade and their legacies as good, or at least competent, showrunners would have been secured. But they had to stick with those endgames to make GOT still seem like an adaptation of Martin's vision. I would have loved to be in on the meeting where Martin told D and D 'So, yeah it's King Bran, Dani goes dark and Jon kills her, Jon then goes back beyond the wall, and Aria goes off columbusing into the new world....btw, I'm not finishing the last two books so even I don't know how to get to those endpoints. Have fun!!' D and D knew they were fucked in that moment lmao.

(about this ask)

Lmaoooo. Can you imagine? So funny.

Someone said shortly after GoT ended that D&D should have just taken the story in their own direction because their interpretation of the characters and the plot points were so misaligned by the end that even if you accept the endgames as Martin's (which I do), you just can't wrap your mind around them in GoT-verse. And I think if they had, they would not have had Jon or Dany on the throne, so the possibility amuses me. They probably would have had Cersei kill them and stay queen or something😂 I think they're personally too into shock value to have ever been down for a HEA for anyone except a Lannister!

Everyone I knew who watched GoT loved Arya (I did too!), but I have seen comments about her being underappreciated by the fandom which baffled me. I guess it's because her endgame wasn't in political power, so the theory is she didn't get what Martin intended for her because D&D were doing fanservice, but that makes no sense. Sansa was hated, Bran had no fanbase to speak of, Dany would have ended up on top if that was the only factor. Oh well. I think most people reject part, if not most, of the endgame, so I guess I can't act shocked. Jon's ending hurts me a lot, so his is where I allow myself to dabble in a little delusion. My poor boy.

[lostjulys]

okay finished ep1 of stampede. collected thoughts........

i think it does great at what it was setting out to do. personally i don't have a beef with the cg animation, i think it looks great, that's not a big deal to me. i think it's intended to be a sci-fi western shonen anime that's designed to be easily consumed & enjoyed, and it succeeds at that imo!! and that isn't necessarily a bad thing; the studio's said that they weren't trying to tell the same story as the manga, and i think they'll do a very enjoyable and competent job at the story they ARE telling.

that being said!!!!!!! personally ummm i do not like it lol. i think um. i think having half the big reveals happen in the first episode & even in the first five minutes of the first episode cheapens it immeasurably. key to the manga, imo, was the blend of dumb loony tunes deep space planet future gun action + slowly increasing moments of sincerity & storytelling that drew a whole lot with some very small, subdued lines, and drew in more mystery with every reveal. i think the idea of going into trigun and immediately getting told, very carefully and literally with small words so we understand clearly, that this is a Sad Tragedy about a Guy who's a Plant and Has a Fucked Up Brother, and he's Tragic, and This Is Rem And She Died, is... low effort storytelling. or, at least, storytelling that's blatantly aimed at pulling in lots of viewers with a big emotional hook in the first episode. i hate the "project seeds" patch on his jacket it genuinely feels that they took all of the "show don't tell" from the original manga & went "hey what would happen if we just, told everything as explicitly as possible instead of showing it :)"

also, i'm really not a fan of the... smoothening, of the redesigns? i don't like that vash looks like a teenager instead of a young adult who's still visibly an adult-he isn't a teen, and it's a weird narrative decision to frame him as one, imo. i don't like millie being softened into the anime it girl instead of, again, a whole ass adult with a job. i have a visceral hatred of the whitewashed, black haired cuteboyification of wolfwood? i want to knee whoever made him white in this adaption in the nuts. the implications of him having a lollipop instead of his cigarette are.. probably indicative of where the tone of the show is headed. and millie's gone, because clearly even comedically gnc women are unmarketable when they're more than just a one-off joke. (sorry. i'm genuinely trying to give it the benefit of the doubt but.. lol.)

millie is gone, btw, and she's replaced with an experienced, cynical older man who's CLEARLY more intelligent and competent than meryl. (he's her bodyguard. which is a fascinating decision, given that... she's the hyperindependent sharpshooter with a coat full of derringers?). this is. possibly my least favorite decision out of many questionable decisions, including that of replacing vash's iconic silver freak ass gun with some apparently random different handgun? as well as the decision to namedrop knives in the very first episode and the general specific emphasis on the "space" part of space western (genuinely such a loss, imo...).

all in all, there's a loss of... intentionality of design that was present in the manga. it feels like the showrunners took the premise and form of trigun and spun that into something new. which is fine! which is fun and enjoyable! but it's a pale, somewhat lackluster imitation of what it's spinning off, there's no way it's ever going to hit as hard or be as meaningful as the original manga.

[ljones41]

I just finished a re-watch of the "LOST" episode, (4.04) "Eggtown". One, it's not really a good episode. Two, watching some of the YouTube reactions to the show made me realize how dense some of the "LOST" fandom can be.

Some of the fans and the YouTube reactors were so busy being dictated by their biases over these characters. Kate Austen's mother, Diane Jensen, WAS NEVER worse than Kate. She wasn't even a bad woman. Kate was not only worse than her mother, but also worse than her father, Wayne Jensen.

You know what disgusted me about Kate sometimes? She was the one who had murdered Wayne in COLD BLOOD and all because she was having an emotional crisis over who was her father. Then she had lied to Diane about why she had killed him. Yet in "Eggtown", she had the nerve to pull the guilt trip on Diane for ratting her out? When Diane had a very good reason to rat her out? God, what a piece of shit Kate could be. Then again, she was no different from many of the other "LOST" characters . . . like Jack Shephard, who had committed attempted murder and perjury by this point in the series; James "Sawyer" Ford, who had committed three acts of murder for the slimmest of reasons within a period of three months; Ben Linus for his slew of crimes and manipulations; Sayid Jarrah for his slew of crimes and hypocrisy; and John Locke for murder, the torturing of Miles Straume and manipulating Sawyer into committing murder.

By the way, what kind of lame ass trial was that? The showrunners had allowed the defense attorney to present his case before the prosecutor. Since when did that ever happen in other fictional works, let alone in real life? I get that the prosecutor didn’t have the evidence to convict Kate for murder, due to Diane's refusal to testify. But shouldn't Kate had faced a trial for the New Mexico bank robbery? This is the episode that introduced the crime Kate had committed against Aaron Littleton and his family - pretending to be his mother and keeping him from them for nearly three years.

It's a miracle that I love this show. Because this episode made me realize how truly disgusting many of the characters could be.

[puthyflapps]

Did y'all extra hate MLR and gen q?

Or is any L word spin off unwelcome?

#confusednonfanofallqueer

I LOVE The L Word (2004) and it was a landmark show that was having its legacy absolutely destroyed and obliterated by the horrible writing on Gen Q. MLR was a horrible showrunner who couldn’t pry her head out of her own ass long enough to hear the resounding boos from all the fans that hated what she was doing with their beloved characters. I’m not even gonna touch on the way she handled business bts 🙄

I’m excited for this New York spinoff especially if Ilene is running things because it means we’re rejecting modernity and embarrassing tradition. I’m trusting her to bring back the friendship and the campiness and the fun and the sexiness and the love that made the original so great. I’m expecting her to respect the audience and the OG’s like MLR never did. I hope she scraps everything that woman ever wrote and just has the show pick up in New York like Gen Q never happened.

I’m ready for the New York reboot with Ilene at the helm because it means we’re gonna see women fucking on our screens again. It was like pulling teeth to get a scene of two women kissing on Gen Q 🙄🙄🙄🙄

[hbogirls]

1, 8, 11, 18, 24, 36, 39, 62? 😊

omg yay thank you for sending these!

Favorite original club member? santana!! my #1 girlie of all time. a mean girl hiding a heart of gold and a bundle of insecurities who is given the time and grace to grow into herself? well yes!

8. Character you’re indifferent about? tina tbh. even when the glee club was smaller in season one, it felt like they were running out of things to do with her, and that problem only worsens as more characters are added over the course of the series. there's just simply not much going on there, to the point that i often feel like when people try to assign depth to her in fanon it rings hollow. there's nothing really to hate, but there's also nothing to really love or cling to imo.

11. Character that deserves better? quinn!!!! omg they abandoned my poor girl after season 2. there's clearly sooo many interesting things going on under the surface with her and they chose to couple her up with puck and call it a day?? she didn't even make it to the double gay wedding episode! those were her best friends! this is not to mention the fact that when quinn gets a chance to be funny, dianna consistently pulls it off and delivers comedic lines perfectly. they made her be so sad all the time!! where is the levity? conversely, where is the exploration of what they set up to be a truly oppressive home life? i know that a show of that size and scope can't possibly address every aspect of every character (it would be deeply annoying if it did) (and actually i think that's why there always has been such an active fan community around the show-- there's a lot of gaps to fill in), but with quinn they actually took the time to set so much stuff up that if they had followed up on even 3% of it, i would've been perfectly content. but alas!

18. Favorite noncanon couple? faberry! my official position on them is that quinn was fully in love with rachel for like.. most of the series, and that rachel didn't understand that/recognize that/reciprocate that until sometime post-canon, but, whether it's intentional in the text or not, there's a very rich faberry tapestry there. i mean you were singing that song to finn and only finn, right? hello??

24. What ship is completely underrated? i was gonna say samcedes, but i think people actually do like them a lot, so i will go with the truly hidden gem that is artie/kitty. somehow their respective brands of bitterness neutralized each other, and it was very cute and charming

36. Top 3 duets? lucky, brave, and be okay

39. Top 3 group numbers? tongue tied, just the way you are (the billy joel cover, not the bruno mars one), and you learn/you've got a friend

62. If you were head writer for Glee, what’s one thing you would’ve done differently? not to sound like mark wahlberg talking about 9/11, but season 4 wouldn't have gone down the way it did if i was there. if you're insisting on introducing new people to an already massive cast, at least act like you care about them a little! when ryder and marley talk to each other (and ryder and jake too tbh) it sounds like ai wrote a conversation between troubled teens. so if there had to be new people, i, as showrunner, would have insisted that even a modicum of effort was put into their stories. BUT i think actually if i had it my way, the new people added to hit the glee club magic number 12 would've been extras. there's already a big enough main cast, we don't need to be adding several half-assed arcs that no one cares about on top of that. what they did was try to split the difference between caring about the new people and making them accessories to the old people, and all they did was create a bunch of scenes to be fast-forwarded through. tv writing is hard though, i get it.

[sanjosenewshq]

Jennifer Lopez Hasnt Had Sufficient Of Motion Films In The Mom Trailer

What labored 20 years in the past for Jennifer Lopez is clearly coming again in type, so why shouldn’t the Bennifer precept maintain true for her film profession? Sure, twenty years after thrilling audiences in “Sufficient,” the multi-hyphenate entertainer is getting again to her ass-kicking roots with “The Mom,” an upcoming action-packed Netflix movie from “Mulan” director Niki Caro. Lopez stars within the movie as a lethal murderer who “comes out of hiding to guard the daughter that she gave up years earlier than, whereas on the run from harmful males,” per the official synopsis. The trailer, which was launched throughout the firm’s Tudum fan occasion on Saturday, opens with the actor flexing her physicality by doing pullups on a distant cabin within the woods. Like many hardened killers earlier than her, Lopez’s character seems to be dwelling fully off the grid, readying her thoughts, physique and stockpile of ammunition for a battle. When her daughter is kidnapped, she’s pulled again into the motion, as we see flashes of her swerving by way of metropolis streets, evading dangerous guys on snowmobiles and usually simply going into full “mama bear” mode. “You noticed what was on the market,” Lopez tells her onscreen daughter performed by Lucy Paez. “It’s going to maintain coming.” “The Mom,” which was co-written by “Lovecraft Nation” showrunner Misha Inexperienced, additionally stars Omari Hardwick, Paul Raci, Gael Garcia Bernal and “The Handmaid’s Story” alum Joseph Fiennes as a closely scarred baddie. The movie is the primary function underneath a partnership Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions lately fashioned with Netflix, based on Selection. Lopez beforehand collaborated with the streaming service on the documentary “Jennifer Lopez: Halftime,” which took an intimate take a look at her decades-spanning profession in music, style and movie. She will subsequent be seen in Amazon’s upcoming rom-com “Shotgun Wedding ceremony” alongside Josh Duhamel, Lenny Kravitz, and Jennifer Coolidge. “The Mom” is about for launch on Netflix in 2023. Watch the trailer under. Originally published at San Jose News HQ

[ourimpavidheroine]

Oh! Numbers 1, 9, 16, and 27 if you please :)

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

Actually, I use two fonts. I read once that you should write in one font and then proofread in another: this would help/trick the eye into seeing more mistakes. I find this to be absolutely true. It's a great trick!

I write in Comic Sans - yes, I know, the one everyone hates, but it's very readable for me - and then I do my final proof in Courier New. For some reason my brain hates Courier New and immediately hones in on typos. I have no actual neurological/scientific explanation for this. Just that it works.

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

I absolutely do. That is based on personal experience, not just random belief.

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

I once grabbed an unused panty shield and shoved it on in there in a moment of great distraction. You can then imagine the response the next day when I was on the commuter train (BART) in San Francisco, pulled out my book, and, having forgotten what I had used the day before, proceeded to remove my bookmark in front of God and everyone and absent-mindedly dangle it around in my fingers as I read until I finally realized what I was doing. 😳

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

Oh, Baatar Jr. The clear winner, no question at all. He's an asshole, you know? He's done terrible things for terrible reasons. The showrunners have openly said they themselves hate the character, something they've not said about any other character they created. (True!) And boy, did that show in how they wrote him for Book 4, didn't it?

I wanted to keep him true to canon, but that was difficult, since Book 3 and Book 4 Baatar don't resemble each other at all. I could have just retconned him or reinvented him - as I did with Huan, for sure, that character is meant to be a pretentious, ennui-filled art student, like I am sure Bryke encountered at school, not Autistic - but in Baatar's particular case I wanted to explore the whys and wherefores of why the shy, bumbling dork of Book 3 became this man so full of rage that he'd force his family and neighbors to literally fucking bow at his girlfriend. I mean. That's a big ass change to go through in a three year time skip.

But at the same time, if I wanted to insert him into what is one of my beloved OPs - Ikki and Huan, my readers love them* - I had to make that work in a way that kept him in character as well as made readers come around to him. If I am completely honest here, I didn't know if I was going to succeed in that and it was part (not all, but part) of the reason it took me so long to write IDNAtNfE.

Baatar is still a huge pain in the ass to write for me, and probably always will be, but he is also very, very close to my heart and I love that fucking prick. Even if he stresses me out. Jerk.

*Except for the readers who tell me I'm a pedophile for making adult Ikki have sex with people because apparently she will always remain 11 years old. For all time. Forever. Even when everyone else in the fic has aged up 10 years or more. She just magically stays 11, with pom-poms in her hair. Just like I, at 53, the mother of two children, twice married, once divorced and once widowed, am still actually my 11 year old self, frizzy hair, freckles, buck teeth and squinting with as of yet still undiagnosed myopia and all. Please don't have sex with me, you pedo.

[incarnateirony]

I was under the impression that Legacies was a huge part of why Wayward Sisters wasn't picked up, that they pulled the rug on WS for it because of internal politics and Julie Plec's (showrunner for TVD, The Originals and Legacies) pushing for it to be picked up instead. Is that true at all or not?

Fandom dialogue. Complete lack of understanding and even active erasure of what the Wayward actresses said. Surface-level glossing of effects. International politics I don't even know where people pulled that out of their ass on.

So here's the dealio on that:

CBS knew it was in hot competition that year, and set out to film the Charmed pilot extra-special early. I immediately felt a knot in my gut. Bad news. Bad vibes all around. But I ignored it. Probably shouldn't have. Resultingly, they had a "strong", ready, pre-approved product to fill the quota they demanded out of CW airspace for their bankrolling.

Wayward pilot aired trended internationally at the top all day, had some of the strongest ratings on the season in live, +3, +7 and digital, and an extremely large fan community, etc etc etc etc and so on,

And Originals getting a spinoff was already a thought long before fandom realized it. Like, I don't know where fandom truly believes the "Julie Plec ran in last second and slapped the script down on the table" dialogue as if it was some random act of god and she pulled a nat 20 with an idea she wrote overnight. The Originals was already ending. TVD was their other giant franchise alongside SPN. SPN was still theoretically going strong. I promise you on my mother's grave that they were already talking to Plec about a way to continue the franchise.

The question/crunch was her just getting a product out in time for announcements. It was never a question of "if" CW would want to extend its other most profitable franchise on the series' end. SPN was still there. In their head, SPN would be fine. They already gave SPN BTS a 2 year greenlight and shortened J2's seasons to try to keep them around (a few weeks before paley) but give enough time to wrap and delay and consider other options. NOT blowing their foot off with the content between then and now would have been a great choice, but cest la vie.

At the end of the day, with Charmed shoved down the pipeline, not only would it make Wayward a THIRD show with heavy woman focus in a monster hunting show (Legacies, Charmed, Wayward), but there simply just wasn't the space, and no visible reason to bump it off the block. If they declined Legacies, they lost the TVD franchise immediately. If they declined Charmed, they lost CBS bankrolling. Wayward was, unfortunately, the natural choice to release, since SPN was theoretically okay. And that's the contractual breakdown Bri talked about in regards to Moonves, who was running CBS at the time. Coincidentally, about 2 months later, Moonves got sniped out of the company by the MeToo movement for sexual harassment. Which really just embodies this entire shitshow.

[cozyforjate]

MacGyver 5x03-Review

MacRiley fam, this will be my last MacGyver review. Thanks for the support and the great feedback on my reviews so far. You guys are awesome! But i’m taking a looong break from this show. I’ll be watching the Jack episode and if we get a Bozer, Matty or Riley centric i’ll tune in to watch. But my passion and excitement for this show is mostly over now.

I have so many things to say about 5x03 but if i start to express all my feelings i’m afraid i might break Tumblr. LOL 

This probably wouldn’t feel like a proper review coz i’m gonna focus on the RETCON that the writers pulled out of their asses to keep MacDesi together.

Ok so for people who are not familiar with the word “retcon”; it means changing an aspect of a fictional work by introducing a piece of new information, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency.

The writers usually pull a retcon, when one aspect of an already canon plot isn’t working well. You can call it a “fix-it” method.

In terms of MacDesi, they retconned some moments from season 4 that defined this relationship. I think the new showrunner and the writers team realized that MacDesi has become quite “toxic” during season 4. But because the additional episodes kept them together, they needed to at least fix this relationship.

From their POV it’s understandable to a degree. But from a viewers POV it’s total BS. Because what we watched in season 4, can’t be changed.

We remember the unhealthy dynamic between them, we remember the lack of trust between them, we remember how incompatible they were, we remember how they couldn’t communicate with each other, we remember Mac not letting her in emotionally, not opening up to her at all, we remember how much they BOTH hurt each other, we remember Mac’s own words on their relationship.

Most importantly we still remember 4x12. How quickly Desi turned her back on him, how she brought his mothers and aunts names into their ugly fight, how Mac said he’d say anything to get her off his back, we remember how she and Russ left Mac no choice but to improvise a plan to save lives, we remember Riley risking everything to protect him and be there for him. WE REMEMBER.

So when you dismiss all of that and re-write MacDesi as if they’re this great couple, it’s not going to work for people. And when you tease MacRiley the whole week with promos, exclusive pictures, articles, SM promotion; promising progress between Mac and Riley only to walk over everything that made them special, you get a lot of NEGATIVE reaction from the fans. With good reason.

* * *

Episode started with Mac and Riley on a picnic mission. The scene was amazing in every sense. The colors, lighting, the conversation between them, the almost kiss, the way Mac held Riley and they lied down for a while, the smug smile on his face and the looks he gave to Riley were all awesome! The car chase was super fun too!

But then everything went down the toilet. Coz in the next scene Mac was complaining to Bozer about how Desi wasn’t spending time with him and avoiding his date attempts. In this scene they retconned Bozer too. For the first time, Bozer encouraged Mac to go ask Desi out and fix their relationship.

Normally Bozer would never do such a thing. Why? Bcoz he’s been against a romantic relationship between them ever since Desi first showed up in 3x14. Bozer thought it was a bad idea from the start, called them Mesi (messy), he didn’t think it was a good idea to bring Desi back on the team in 4x01, coz MD break up was NUCLEAR. So up until 5x03 Bozer was never on Team MacDesi. Lets also remember this exchange between them:

In 4x12 when Bozer was trying to save Mac and Riley’s lives, he turns to Desi... 

Bozer: Desi, back me up here.

Desi: Sometimes we need to sacrifice the things we love for the greater good.

So after 4x12, one would only expect that his thoughts on MD would get stronger. But guess what? Bozer is now supporting MD. Just like that. I don’t buy it writers, sorry.

Back to the scene… Mac wants to go on a date with Desi. And he is so desperate about it. We had to witness one of the most awkward scenes between them. Not only that but we had to sit through Riley throwing smiles at MD, saying her feelings for Mac was just Codex adrenaline. Riley, who couldn’t watch any interaction between MD, is now totally cool with them!

And lets just say that Riley was pretending she’s over Mac, that she lied to Bozer bcoz she’s trying to move on. We already watched her having feelings for Mac, hiding those feelings and pining for him. Her one-sided love can’t drive the plot anymore. 

Besides she didn’t need to give her blessings to MD. It was an overkill. I really hated the scene where she says “Don’t screw up this time” to Mac…That was totally out of character for Riley.  

Riley who reminded Desi that Russ & her were gonna nuke them,

Riley who said she went after Mac coz she trusted him &asked Desi "Why didn't you?",

Riley who risked it all to protect Mac, tells Mac not to screw it up with Desi.

By saying those words, Riley makes it known that Mac was the one screwing up his rl with Desi. Desi had no fault. Once again the writers used my favorite character to prop my least favorite character. Shame on you!

***

I’m not gonna talk about every MacDesi scene in this episode. But let me just say that the writers turned Mac into a desperate, begging, lovesick puppy. He asked Desi for a date like 5 times, apologized twice. Kissed her out of the blue. Bcoz lets face it, that scene was so unnecessary. Nobody was onto them, the police car was passing by slowly and if the police were really suspicious, why would they look at the couple kissing instead of checking who’s in the car? So stupid. Oh and while they were kissing for minutes with great lighting and all, General Ma escaped. Mac acting this stupid, is not something we are used to see. But what you gonna do? I guess love is not only blind but also destroyes brain cells in the process.

Anyway, Mac literally begging Desi to go on a date with him was agonizing to watch. Every time he offers a new dating idea, Desi’s answer is NAH. Back in the picnic scene she made it sound like she wanted to date Mac, but of course she needs to make him suffer first!

I only like to point out the scene where Mac –finally- opened up to Desi about the fishing trip he and his father went together. This story is obviously precious to him. He called it a happy memory. Clearly he misses his father, still mourning for his loss. So he shared his happy memory and asked if she would like to go fishing with him. Desi’s answer? “Not gonna go fishing with you as our first date!” You can read the dissapointment on his face. And my heart breaks for Mac but this kind of treatment is something he’s asking for.

He is desperate to get Desi back. The fact that they are the worst match ever, doesn’t change sh*t. Mac wants Desi and he loves Desi for god knows why.

***

Btw- the whole “lets blame only Mac for Codex and ignore Desi’s wrongdoings” plot is disgusting. Yes, Mac suffocating Desi and Russ to escape Phoenix with Scarlett was wrong. Yes he hurt her, yes in a sense he betrayed her. AND HE APOLOGIZED. But what about Desi? What about her betrayel? 

First they made Riley apologize to Desi for following Mac and now they made Mac apologize… But no apologies from Desi. The writers are obviously worshipping Desi and they’re ready to sacrifice every character to make her look “perfect”. I’m sorry but i’m not here to watch the Desi show, or more MacDesi nonsense.

***

Mac said Desi is the woman he loves… but not only that, she is also the woman who guided him back. And the RETCON is really strong with this scene.

Lets remember…

In 4x08 Mac loses his father, at the end of the episode Desi wants to go with Mac but Mac stops her, telling he’d see her tomorrow.

In 4x09 Desi says he can share his burden with her, Mac’s not interested, he says what he needs is to stop Codex.

In 4x10 Mac makes apocalypse kits for Riley and Desi. Desi’s so happy she got a crossbow and didn’t think those kits were a bad sign. But Riley notices that Mac is not in a good place, he needed help and support. Riley shares her concerns about Mac with Desi. She probably thinks it’s not up to her to be the one doing that when Desi is the girlfriend. So after her conversation with Riley, Desi makes soup and gives Mac a compass. Saying he’s not lost (he clearly was tho). She askes if everything’s ok, he looks different but Mac says, he’s just tired.

In 4x12 Mac is lying in bed, lost in his own mind, he gets up, leaves the compass on her side of the nightstand… On the run he ignores Desi’s calls.

Then things get really ugly for MacDesi. Desi says “You are so drunk on somescrewed-up cocktail of your mom, your aunt, Codex science...”… She says “You're compromised”…  Mac was just trying to get Scarlett on their side to stop Codex but Desi couldn’t see it. She thought Mac was losing it!

And then Desi sides with Russ and turns her back on Mac. Russ dismisses Mac from the Codex mission. Mac's forced to improvise. Bcoz he wants to stop Codex without bloodshed.

So as you can see they completely re-wrote the events of 4x12 to fix MD.

Desi says: “I had front-row seats to the war that raged in you last year, and I can't do that again. Lose you.”

She was ready to sacrifice him for the greater good. But yeah, sure! Why not.

Mac says: “Des, I know it looked like I was lost, but you were there the whole time, guiding me back home.”

THE WHOLE TIME.

In 3 times she “tried” to be there for him, Mac didn't let her in emotionally but lets just say that she brought him back to his senses.

Lets just say that the compass he left on her side of the nightstand represents that it guided him back. (btw lets also ignore that the compass Mac gave Desi back was a different one. Who knows, maybe he threw it in the garbage during the pandemic and bought a new one)

Lets just forget who really brought him back. Lets just ignore what Riley did for Mac. How she saved him, how she was the one who risked everything for Mac. How she was the one there by his side when they were facing a missile.

Only if we forget and retcon history we can all buy MacDesi. 

But i can’t… I can’t forget, i’m not ok with a retconned half-ass love story that they want to sell with MD. I can’t sit through the episodes and keep watching the “flawless Desi” show.

This show isn’t entertaining to me anymore. I can’t recognize Mac, i’m pissed that my fav characters are being used as tools to prop Desi.

One last thing before i say my final goodbyes:

The lighting in this episode was so weird. In almost every scene, heavy light effects distracted me. Usually they use it when they show you a flashback, a dream or a hallucination to seperate the real-time scenes from others. But this episode had them from the start to the end. So i don’t know what to make of this.

Some of the dialogues had subtexts…

Leland to Russ: Now, I know you don't care about much in this world, but even the best of us can be blinded by those we love.

General Ma to Mac: I was blinded by him (Leland) once. I-I won't be blinded again.

Mac: Many things blind us. Anger, betrayal, even love. But sometimes, a little blindness can work to your advantage. You can create a fog that will cause the world around you to disappear.

Normally i would dive deep into the subtextland. But i don’t think the writers were trying to give some deep message or anything. 

I do believe that Mac is totally blinded by his “idea” of love… But i’m done waiting for him to open his eyes. The Mac i watched in this episode is not My Mac.

Writers made their choice. They made Mac's feelings crystal clear. He's all about Desi. At this point, Desi breaking up with him would mean nothing to me. Just like Riley still having feelings for Mac means nothing anymore.

Official accounts tweeting “There’s more to come for MacRiley” means nothing to me anymore.

Noone wants a rebound plot but unfortunately it's the only possibility they left to MacRiley. My ship is tainted forever. 

And as a Riley stan, i don’t want this Mac with my girl. She deserves better.

[frasier-crane-style]

It’s a love story baby just say yes

Disney: Hey buddy, new episode of Loki out.

Me: Okay.

Disney: This week we find out Lady Loki’s backstory!

Me: Thought that would be covered in the last episode, where Loki spent the whole episode with her, presumably trying to figure out what her deal was, but I guess not.

Disney: Well, now we anticlimactically reveal it in the first few minutes.

Me: Okay. So?

Disney: So she’s a Loki that was either born female through random chance or decided to be a full-time woman for some shapeshifter reason, even though ‘Loki’ is ‘genderfluid’ already.

Me: So you wouldn’t think that would make a difference, going by your own logic.

Disney: Well, it does! Probably! This makes her a Variant, so the TVA comes after her.

Me: Wait, how old is she in all this?

Disney: Oh, about ten or so.

Me: Wow.

Disney: What?

Me: It’s just you’ve previously shown the TVA to go after these Variant timelines, like, minutes after they kick off. They’ve been like ‘oh no, we only have thirty minutes before we have to reset this timeline, otherwise the galaxy will implode!’ They let this one go for several years? I’m assuming here that Asgardians-slash-Jotuns age to adulthood a la humans and then the aging process slows way the hell down, so there’s no Baby Yoda situation where Thor spends a century wearing diapers.

Disney: Safe bet. But yeah, they just let ‘Loki’ be a woman for a decade or so. Or maybe ‘she’ just decided to always be a woman five minutes before the scene started and we were just really unclear on that point.

Me: How unclear?

Disney: We literally have ‘her’ ask how she broke the timeline and Ravenna just blows her off. One of those “for me, it was Tuesday” things.

Me: Despite the obvious answer being that this Loki is a woman, which was previously inferred, since all the Lokis that weren’t straight-line Thor 1-to-Ragnarok Lokis were pruned? I mean, this is a weird point to go from ‘if you step one foot out of Sacred Timeline line, the TVA will take your ass out’ to ‘ehh, Loki could’ve been a woman if the universe felt like it, no one’s stopping him/her/it.’

Disney: That it?

Me: No... the premise of your show is that ‘our Loki’ is going after ‘Lady Loki’ because he has some in-depth knowledge of ‘her’ thought process. But her life deviated from his something like a thousand years ago, when the TVA scooped her up as a child. They basically exist as two completely different people; Lady Loki even says she barely remembers Asgard, which was this Loki’s whole life until a couple years ago. So this is like taking Adolf Hitler as an adolescent, raising him as a Mormon in the year 2536, then expecting him to know what Der Fuhrer is thinking back in 1943.

Disney: Huh. Maybe we should’ve dedicated a whole episode to that important point instead of just one short opening scene.

Me: Like last week’s episode? Which was all about who Lady Loki was?

Disney: Yeah, that would’ve been a really good idea. 

Me: Is Dude Loki even the same age as Lady Loki? She could’ve been dodging the TVA for like fifteen years while Loki Boy lived out hundreds of years of life. Which, again, argues against them having any sort of profound Loki-to-Loki connection. He could be the Asgardian equivalent of an octogenarian interacting with a teenager! And also one is Chinese and one is Mexican.

Disney: Anyway, Lady Loki escapes and grows up on the run from the TVA.

Me: Okay, how does she escape?

Disney: Hmm?

Me: Lady Loki, how does she escape from the all-powerful TVA as a small child? Even our fully grown Loki struggled to do that. As the Goddess of Mischief, she must’ve pulled off some really clever trick.

Disney: Oh, she did! The agent guarding her? Lokette kicked her in the shin and bit her hand.

Me: ...

Disney: Then she grabbed the agent’s little Ziggy thing and ran for it.

Me: And that’s the best explanation you could come up with for a small child escaping the most powerful people in the MCU?

Disney: Yup!

Me: Should I even ask how Lady Loki learned all this magic and shit if she was always on the run, NOT in Asgard where she would have teachers?

Disney: You’re forgetting that this is Disney. Female characters are always stronger and more competent than male characters, no matter how lacking in experience or puberty they are.

Me: Right, right, right... you ever think about maybe hiring a showrunner that’s more concerned with telling a good story than making Loki a homogay who kisses men?

Disney: No, why? Hey, we gave the fat black lady a big hero moment, would you like to hear about how totally unearned it was? She basically ran through Moebius’s whole character arc in, like, two minutes so we could have a ‘shocking death’ and then subvert your expectations that Owen Wilson would actually have something to do as a deuteragonist. 

[stomp-that-ho-regard]

I typically don’t do asks (I've only ever gotten a few), but a recent one got my gears turning and I wanted to reply.

(This is a secondary blog, so I can’t answer asks in the usual way.)

Your post about the retcon is so fucking good, I wish every critter saw it and actually thought about how shitty it was done, but then their belief in the cast and show would probably start cracking.

Thank you for liking the retcon post. I’ve seen various people in the tags thank me for making that post and have said that it’s helped them ‘feel less insane’. None of us are insane. We are not delusional. We didn’t experience a mass hallucination. These things happened, and they’ve been thoroughly documented. Hundreds of hours of material over the course of three years.

The people who should read that post won’t ever see it because I have all those assholes blocked lol. If they did manage to find it somehow, I know they would just mock it, as they’re wont to do with any of our criticisms. They’re so far up CR’s ass, they’ve convinced themselves that a retcon didn’t happen. Even shoving the literal definition of the word in their faces wouldn’t wake them up.

It's just so fucking weird to see how the group is acting now, and I'm pretty sure we're never gonna get a Laura&Marisha episode picture and a TM episode with those 2 for the rest of the campaign. It feels like when a non-canon wlw ship gets big on a TV show and suddenly the actresses can't be seen or interact with each other anymore🙄 it's the same fucking pattern and like you, I thought I wouldn't have to deal with this on a d&d show.

I specifically want to address the “It feels like when a non-canon wlw ship gets big on a TV show and suddenly the actresses can't be seen or interact with each other anymore” because I’ve thought about that pattern too. (Not so much with Marisha/Laura ‘cause them being on TM together is already a rare combo. If they don’t appear much or at all going forward, I don’t think it’s because of this, though it really wouldn’t surprise me. But, I have been thinking about that specific pattern in regard to their characters.)

I can make a comparison between this situation and what happened with the show A/gent Carter and the way the ship Cart/inelli was handled.

I know that might sound weird, but stay with me here lol...

I want to make it clear that I’m not comparing the relationships at all. Cart/inelli did not have nearly the same amount of build-up and depth as Beaujester, (or quite frankly, their level of possibility.) What I am comparing is the creators over-the-top reactions to these characters being shipped so hard and the extreme measures they went to in order to ‘remedy’ that.

The ship included P/eggy Carter and A/ngie Martinelli. The show was set in New York. Angie was a waitress (who wanted to be an actress/be on Broadway) at the diner that Peggy frequented. They ended up talking quite a bit and became fairly close. That ended up kind of becoming the core relationship in the entire first season, and LOTS of people started shipping it.

At the time, no one was calling us crazy or delusional. At most it was, “This is ABC! They’re not gonna pair her with a woman!” and of course the obligatory “But Peggy’s not gay!”. But no one was calling us names or being generally cruel. And anyone who tried it was ignored because everyone else drowned them out. The ship became extremely popular on Tumblr and Twitter. Both actresses were very positive and supportive. They regularly liked/retweeted romantic Cart/inelli fanart on Twitter. Even one of the female writers on the show got behind it too. It was asked about frequently at conventions and no one booed or rolled their eyes. The questions were never dismissed or made into a joke. (Honestly, this was one of the better overall fandom experiences I’ve had on here.)

And all of us were super excited for S2. Not just because of all the support, but because they had ended S1 with Peggy and Angie moving in together. Peggy had purchased, either it was a really fancy apartment or house (my memory is fuzzy on this), and she literally asked Angie to stay with her. Needless to say, that fueled the flames even more.

But despite the actresses and at least one writer being on board, between S1 and S2, something shifted.

Clearly, the showrunner and/or the execs, took a look at all of this and deemed it a ‘problem’. When S2 finally came around, suddenly everything was different. Instead of both of them living together in New York, instead of it being an organic (I’m beginning to hate that word) continuation from where they left off, Peggy decided to move to Los Angeles to do work for some agency out there or something, and Angie stayed in New York. It’s never explained why. It’s never explained why a woman who so badly wanted to be an actress would NOT want to go to LA, where Hollywood is. LA was never mentioned in S1. There were no hints that Peggy might want to fly out to the West Coast at some point. She seemed perfectly happy in NY, basically setting up house with Angie.

And they didn’t even ease into the change. They just got rid of the character. The actress was bummed about it and Cart/inelli fans tried to put pressure on the showrunner/writers to bring Angie back, which the actress completely supported, but even that fell on deaf ears. So, Angie was simply no longer an entity on that show. Conveniently removed. All the excitement we had was crushed. And of course, the second that Peggy got out to LA, she suddenly had a very obvious male love interest. What a surprise.

The showrunner/writers were not subtle about what they thought about our ship and us. They made the most extreme, nonsensical writing decision in order to permanently separate these two characters. Because, hey, that’s the only way to get the shippers to STOP, right?

This was what I was reminded of when I started seeing the turn that post-hiatus CR was taking. It ended up being a weird combination of kneejerk erasure (BJ) and heavy-handed overcompensation (BY).

But of course, CR is not a TV show, it’s D&D. And they can’t force one of their PCs to just disappear, so what do they have to resort to? Not interacting.

We all know how severely neutered Beau and Jester’s general relationship has become. It’s clear to me that both Marisha and Laura felt they had to do that. They had to suddenly have their characters stay away from each other as much as possible so they could prioritize Fjord and Yasha, and speed-run into romances with them. They started acting as if either of them giving the other one ounce of affectionate attention (like they had been doing so often and so naturally before), would be breaking some sort of hidden ‘relationship code’. Almost like if they ever hugged again, the studio would go down in flames.

The very obvious fact that they went to these lengths, to me, proves two things...

One, it proves the retcon even more, because you can tell that the way they behaved with each other DID in fact change. The frequency of interactions and the way those interactions would play out. Whenever they interact now, it seems like they’re trying to keep it as short, thin, and almost comedic (to the point of goofiness, and not in a good way) as possible. Their engagement seems half-assed and dull. The sounds of their voices, their facial expressions... completely sanitized. Even all the physicality they had is gone; the touches, the hugs, the cuddling. Every single aspect is different and they absolutely did that intentionally. This had to happen because they needed to dupe the viewers into believing that despite overall interest waning, their threadbare connections to Fjord and Yasha are more important, and were always more important then their connection to each other, that we all watched them steadily build. (And watched them pick up steam from about ep70 onwards.)

And two, that whole intentional decision to cut themselves off from each other, proves to me that their interactions pre-hiatus were indeed tinged with ‘something extra’, that was more than just friendship. They both recognized it and that’s why they pulled back so hard. That’s why soft touches and hugs and cuddling are no longer ‘allowed’. That’s why quiet, heartfelt conversations are no longer ‘allowed’. Because if there was absolutely nothing there, if they didn’t see/feel any romantic chemistry simmering underneath, and it was all just platonic BFF stuff, why would they suppress their behavior so drastically?

I think that all of this really does cement what I said in my retcon post: That there are disingenuous patterns being used here that I’ve seen far too often in media. In A/gent Carter, it was a character separation, in CR it was a character dynamic separation. Both done on purpose, to make the shippers shut up, and to push a different plot.

One is scripted, the other is unscripted, but the situations feel disgustingly similar, don’t they?

[ncisladaily]

CBS’ NCIS: Los Angeles, by writing out not just Eric but also Nell in its Season 12 finale, made the question of Linda Hunt’s involvement in the CBS series more burning than ever.

After all, if Nell (played by Renee Felice Smith) was groomed all season long to take over for the MIA Operations Manager, who will lead the team in her sudden absence?

Or might the “new Hetty” be in fact the very best Hetty, as in Hunt herself?

TVLine spoke with showrunner R. Scott Gemmill about Hunt’s cameo in the season finale and what that means for Season 13, and more. (And as always, if you seek additional NCIS: LA scoop, email InsideLine@tvline.com. I’m sitting on tons!)

TVLINE | Hetty showing up…. Eric and Nell riding off into the sunset…. “Densi” picnicking on the beach…. Sam seeing his son take his fighter pilot exam…. Correct me if I’m wrong, but  was this the happiest damn NCIS: LA season finale we’ve ever had…? Well, it wasn’t what we were going to do, that’s for sure. We were going to use the finale that we had written for last season, which got bumped because of COVID, and then we realized everyone had such a tough, s–tty year, that we couldn’t in good conscience put the fans through any more trauma. So we decided to go in the exact opposite way and do a fun, feel-good episode that leaves everyone happy and hopeful for what is coming down the line.

TVLINE | What was the gist of the original, bumped finale? It involved Anna and Katya and that storyline, which we still want to play out. But it was a little darker than [what we went with]. If ever there was a season where you wanted to go out on a fun, happy note, this was the one where everyone needed that more than we needed to show off some cool episode. We needed to make everyone feel good.

TVLINE | I liked how at that one point Sam and Callen recounted everything that they’d gone through during this crazy year. You know, the fans have been really loyal for 12 years, and sometimes we do things that are exciting but are also a little bit traumatic, and we felt like we should have as much fun as we can and share that with the fans. It was like a little “love letter” to the audience, to show how much we appreciate them.

TVLINE | Amongst other things, you also apparently had an election in your world, because the president who gave Kessler the pardon is now a former POTUS. But it’s not Trump, because your guy was a former congressman, right? Yeah. Yeah. We always have to have a loophole!

[We then discussed the decision to write our Eric and Nell, reported here.]

TVLINE | What sort of reactions did you get from Barrett and Renée, when you told them your plan? You know, it goes back and forth with each season. There have been seasons where Barrett has gotten sort of bored — he really pulls toward Broadway — and I would always have to have the duality conversation, which is, as a friend, “I totally understand. You want to be doing something else, something cool. You should.” But as a father figure, I’m like, “Keep getting the paycheck because one day the show’ll be over, and then you can do whatever you want.”

Renée’s the same; a lot of the time when we haven’t seen her, it’s because we’ve written her out so that she can pursue [other projects]. She’s developing her own shows, and just wrote a book that’s out. A lot of the actors have other projects; Dani [Ruah] is directing a movie in Portugal right now. It’s such a gift to have a show go this long, but it’s also a big ask to have someone do the same thing for a long time, whether it’s actors or writers or one of the crew.

TVLINE | With Nell gone, what is the plan to fill Hetty’s position? Right now, we’re kicking around some ideas….

TVLINE | It seems like you may have to bring on someone new. As you know, Linda [Hunt] was away a lot more this season because of COVID and us trying to keep her safe. The couple of episodes that she was in, where she was supposed to be in the Middle East, we actually shot in her driveway. That was getting a little more difficult to do, and then finally, Linda had both her vaccines, she was feeling great, and she came back. And she was so happy to be back. She had been gone for so long and hadn’t really interacted with anyone, so she was just so thrilled to be back on set. The minute I saw her, she’s like, “Let’s talk about next season…,” so I think that as tough as last year was, for a lot of reasons, she, like the rest of us, is starting to see a little light at the end of the tunnel and feels good about coming back to work.

TVLINE | That’s good to hear, because Hetty’s line about still being up to her “ass in alligators” made me worry you were hedging your bets. Whenever [a cast member] goes away, we introduce some predicament that we’re forced to deal with. We always try and incorporate it. I think those are instances of opportunity rather than problems. Like when Dani was pregnant, or whatever it is that’s thrown at us, we try to incorporate that.  You normally wouldn’t ever write one of your No 1 through 6 actors  out for four or five episodes, because you couldn’t afford to, but when they have to for whatever reason, you try and jump at that because that’s something you don’t normally get to do, and you build that into the story. Like, “Where is this character?” Obviously, Hetty was away, but we want there to be a real reason, and we’ll probably revisit that next season.

TVLINE | So, we might get a good amount of Hetty in Season 13? That’s the plan, yeah.

TVLINE | In the meantime, what an MVP Gerald McRaney has been, as Kilbride! Oh, man…. I have been a huge fan of his forever. I mean, I grew up watching him and I was really happy when we had him on the show the first time, a few years ago. He’s such a pro and so cool, he raises everybody’s game.

TVLINE | And Kilbride’s such a pisser, grumbling about the millennials and their TikToks. He’s so great because he can do comedy, and he can do drama, and he likes to be out running around with guns, because he’s a big hunter in real life. We hope to see a lot more of him.

TVLINE | Was there anything you didn’t get to in Season 12? There were a lot of things, like Callen’s past as a child; we probably would have started to explore that a bit more. We didn’t get to where Hetty was; that was a big storyline that we were building towards with, what she was involved in. If we were having a normal season, we would have gone to where Hetty was.

TVLINE | When she and Nell hugged, I got teary-eyed, man. I felt like Renée was really crying in that scene. That’s what we wanted. We didn’t want to shortchange that return, so we had Hetty make an appearance with Nell, and then had a little fun with her and Kilbride.

TVLINE | Turning to the week prior, I kind of loved how Joelle is basically a Bond villain at this point, dressed all in black with one gloved hand and a prosthetic leg…. I talked to Elizabeth [Bogush] ahead of time and said, “I think we’re going to cut your leg off,” and she was like, “What??” [Laughs] You want to have some legitimate repercussions for some of this craziness, and that seemed like a good way to do it.

TVLINE | Renewal came later than usual this year. Are you preparing for next season to possibly be your last? We sort of always have that in the back of our mind, and this year wasn’t any different. Next season, I hope to get a heads-up if that is the case, just so that we can go out with an episode or a bunch of episodes that really tie up things and send our characters into the future in a way that makes everyone happy. But we’ll just have to wait and see. No one ever knows. If there is someone that knows, they’re not telling me!

TVLINE | You think it’ll be a full season? I think we’re scheduled to do 18 episodes. I would like to do [at least] 19, because that will get us to 300. I would really like to get 300, because that’s such a milestone.